To End the Lie
by drewbug
Summary: Short internal angsty piece set immediately after the Season 4 finale


Disclaimer: They're not mine, no matter how many letters I write to Santa. And all those birthday-candle wishes didn't do much either. But, I suppose, if I can't have them, I don't know of anyone who would take better care of them than Chris Carter… So no infringement is intended. 

Here goes…

~~~

To End the Lie 

Nicole Clevenger (c) 1997

Part of me still refuses to believe it.

There's still this last shred of hope, this "But what if?" But what if this is a scam designed as a scam. But what if they're trying to make me believe that all my work has been in vain, just to make it all in vain? But what if the alien body we found *was* real, and it was purposely taken before the proper scientific methods could be used to determine its validity?

But what if Kritschgau was right? But what if I've been believing a lie all along? 

Samantha is gone. Really and truly gone. And there's no way I'll ever be able to get her back. No chance I'll one day find that elusive clue, that crucial piece of information that will lead me to her. Because she's not with *aliens,* never was. Because there's no such thing.

And all of my adult life has been devoted to a futile and ridiculous search for something that doesn't exist.

The price? I have no friends, no family, no life. My entire belief system is a joke. For years I have been nothing more than a pawn on the chessboard, it seems, manipulated as the players see fit. Everything I've ever worked for amounts to nothing. My job, my actions, my very *existence* is the lie I believed in. A life created on a lie is no life. I might as well end the lie here and now.

Scully will be better off without me. Scully has only tainted her career and wasted her time following me around all these years on my foolish chases across the world. Scully –

Scully is dying. 

Scully is dying because of me. 

Because she was caught in my world, in the lie that I succumbed to. She never believed it herself – not Scully. Scully is the smart one, the grounded one, the one who was able to see the truth when I was blinded by false hopes and delusions. If only she had had the sense to break away from me, to save herself. But I wouldn't let her go, would I? This was my fault, all the way through.

Oh, Scully, oh, Dana, I'm so very, very sorry. I should have let you leave, should have sent you away, should have forced you into some safe distance all those times I had the chance. But in my selfishness, I pulled instead of pushed. I dragged you along with me, into my personal hell, and because of that you're dying. They gave you this cancer to make sure I believed, and I just lapped it all up like the good dumb dog they wanted me to be. Oh, Dana, what can I possibly say to apologize for this?

Nothing. There's nothing I can say or do that will make this all better. 

So I'm going to leave your life forever, without saying another word.

The television is on, a tape of an old panel discussing something to do with space explorations or aliens or something. I didn't really look when I put it in; I'm not watching now. It's just a cruel joke, some kind of sick punishment that I inflicted on myself. Not that I don't deserve it. I just don't care anymore.

I *wish* I didn't care. It would make all of this so much easier. I'm so numb, so unfeeling… But then suddenly the truth will wash over me again in an exquisitely gut-wrenching wave of recollection, and it will be as if I'm hearing it all again for the first time. They gave Scully cancer to make me believe. To believe the biggest of lies. 

Their faces waver in the air in front of my blurry eyes. All those that have died because of me. All those that have suffered because of my delusive *quest.*** **The word tastes foul in my mouth, and I want to spit it out. As if that will fix things. As if I could. *Quest.* I have destroyed lives – including my own – for this gullible insanity.

Deep Throat. Mr. X. Melissa. My father. And soon, Dana Scully. And while Samantha does not exactly fit into this group… Even if I accept that her disappearance was not my fault, I have profaned her memory with this ludicrous search. I have refused to let her rest in peace, and I have also denied that same peace to my mother, I suppose. And to myself.

It's all been a lie.

The truth is *not* out there.

And there is no way for me to go on.

My burning eyes drift down to the gun in my hand. Is this really what comes next? Is this how it all ends?

A lie.

There is no choice, really. And Scully *will* be better without me. This way she can spend whatever time she has left with her family, enjoying these last weeks, months, years, without the burden of "Spooky" Mulder. She won't ever have to trail me on another snipe hunt, all the while trying to talk *some* sense into me, to make me see what I should have seen from the very beginning…

And who knows? Maybe she'll get better. Maybe she'll go into remission or something. Then she can try to save her career and her reputation, can have the chance to do something better with her life than work on this joke of a division known as the X-Files. She can pull through, too. I know she can. She'll get her life back together in no time. She's the strongest person I've ever known.

Soon she'll be able to forget I've ever even existed.

Which is the way it should be.

I'm standing. I don't remember getting up, but I'm standing now, a full clip in my hand. I watch with a detached, morbid fascination as I mechanically slide the clip into my gun. There is a click as it snaps into place, and the small sound is incredibly loud in the dark room. My vision has tunneled completely, to the extent that all I can see is the gun in my hand. I wonder if I'll feel the bullet as it enters my brain. One brilliant flash of pain before it's over forever. 

The gun barrel brushes my cheek. It's cold, so cold, the way death must be. And this is it, isn't it? This is death. The end of Fox "Spooky" Mulder. The end of the lies, and the games, and the pain. The end of the manipulated destroyer. I can almost hear the chess players breathe a collective sigh of relief. 

My eyes are closed. I have seen all I want to see. A thought of Scully – that perhaps I should say goodbye, leave a note for her, *something* -- briefly flitters through my mind. But no, that would just prolong the pain. For everyone. I want to end the pain.

I bring the muzzle of the gun to my temple.

And then the phone rings.


End file.
